The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for publishing electronic information to consumers and for processing consumer""s responses and more particularly to a system and method for presenting electronic bills to consumers and for processing consumer payments.
Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) is an electronic alternative to the traditional paper bill presentation and payment methods which have dominated commerce since the establishment of postal services. Separate from the accounting costs, some of which will be incurred regardless of the method of bill presentment and payment, the cost of presenting and paying bills using traditional paper methods is astronomical. Large billers (credit card, mortgage, car loans, student loans . . . ) are interested in EBPP for its cost displacement, revenue generation, and image enhancement potential.
Using EBPP, an entity which generates invoices (bills) for its goods and services is able to present bills electronically to its customers and enables the consumer to pay the bills electronically. In one simple model of EBPP, the invoicing entity, hereinafter a xe2x80x9cbillerxe2x80x9d, generates the electronic bill itself and presents the electronic bill directly to its customer. The direct bill presentment is typically accomplished through an Internet web site maintained by or for the biller. This form of direct electronic bill presentment has certain advantages such as increasing consumer traffic to the biller""s web site, which can generate additional revenues. Direct biller presentment also leverages the biller""s investment in the web site. Finally, by using direct biller presentment, the biller can totally control each segment of the bill presentment and payment process. The entity which actually presents the interface to the customer is denoted as a Consumer Service Provider (CSP). As stated above, the functions of the CSP can be accomplished in-house by the biller itself, or outsourced to a firm which specializes in this type of function.
The greatest disadvantage of direct biller presentment is that the biller""s customers must initiate the process of logging onto the biller""s site on the Internet in order to view, review and pay its bills. This is known in the art as an example a xe2x80x9cpullxe2x80x9d type technology in which the consumer must take an active step of logging onto the biller""s site. In contrast to the above described xe2x80x9cpullxe2x80x9d technology, xe2x80x9cpushxe2x80x9d technology is exemplified by the traditional paper billing process in which the paper bill is xe2x80x9cpushedxe2x80x9d to the customer""s mailbox at his/her mailing address. Another significant drawback of the direct biller presentment model is that, from a consumer""s point of view, only bills from a single biller can be presented and paid at a the biller""s web site. For example, if a customer""s telephone service provider maintains a direct bill presentment web site, the customer can only pay its telephone bill at that site, and not its cable bill. To pay the cable bill, the consumer must log off of the telephone company""s site and log onto the cable company""s site. Still another disadvantage of direct bill presentment by the biller is that the biller must create a method by which the customer may pay the bill electronically while being logged onto the biller""s site. Although several methods of processing electronic payments have been developed over the last few years, it is up to the biller to adopt, maintain and/or outsource one or more of these methods. There are actually two functions associated with payment processing. First, the function of actually interfacing with the consumer is accomplished by an entity which is denoted as a Consumer Payment Provider (CPP). The second function is processing the biller""s credits which is performed by a Biller Payment Provider (BPP). Although these are two separate and distinct functions associated with payment processing, they are often performed by the same entity.
A second model for EBPP is through a consolidated bill presentment site. Through this method, access to electronic bills from several billers is provided on a single bill presentment site. Typically a bank provides a bill presentment site, after it has agreement from several billers (or the agents of billers) to act as the electronic bill presenter on behalf of the billers. An advantage to the biller in using a consolidated site is that it avoids the costs of developing and maintaining the site itself. Although the entity maintaining the consolidated site (the xe2x80x9cconsolidatorxe2x80x9d) will charge the biller for the service (typically on a transactional basis) the costs to the biller are significantly less than a self maintained site. Furthermore, the consolidator will typically provide some sort of payment processing service as described above. This is one reason which banks are drawn to this role, since banks typically have the systems and processes for payment processing. The consolidated approach is attractive to consumers in that a consumer can log onto a single site (typically with a single password) and have access to several electronic bills from several different billers. Another advantage of a consolidated site is that it does not exclude the biller from separately maintaining its own direct presentation site as described above. Even if the biller has its own Internet site which it uses for EBPP, the additional use of the consolidated site will only increase the likelihood that a biller""s customer will use EBPP and thereby save the biller money by avoiding the traditional, and costly, paper billing system.
As with the direct bill presentment model described above, the greatest disadvantage of consolidated presentment is that it is a pull technology in which the consumers must initiate the process of logging onto the consolidated bill presentment site. Although it represents an advance over the direct presentation model, another disadvantage of the consolidated model is that a consumer can only electronically view and pay a subset of its bills at the consolidated site. The subset is usually defined by the number of billers which a consolidator is able to attract to its site. The advantage of the Internet being accessible national-wide (international) is, in part, a disadvantage from the perspective of EBPP which must take into account regional or local bills. For example, two of the monthly bills typically paid by most consumers are telephone and utility bills. By their very nature, the billers for these services are organized on a regional or local basis. For this reason, consolidators have an easier time attracting national billers (e.g., Sears) than they have signing up a local utility company. Another disadvantage for a biller using a consolidator is that the biller loses a significant marketing opportunity with respect to its customers. Typically, a consolidator will only provide the biller with a limited capability to present marketing materials to its customers. Furthermore, there exists the potential that a competitor of biller will also appear on the consolidated site and potentially drain customers away from the biller. A final and significant disadvantage of consolidated bill presentment is that the biller must, in some form, provide its billing data to the consolidator. Separate from the technical details of formatting its billing data in a form which the consolidator can use, the biller loses control of the process by the employment of a consolidator. Although contractual and legal obligations can be created with respect to the consolidator, the biller must always be concerned that its customer""s billing data provided to the third party consolidator is not mishandled or misused.
One additional model for EBPP is through the use of Email. In this model, the biller, or the biller""s agent generates the electronic bill which is forwarded directly to the consumer""s designated electronic mailbox (Email address). The greatest advantage of this model is that, through the push technology of Email, the electronic bill is sent directly to the customer, without the customer having to take any action whatsoever. Naturally the customer must open his or her Email in order to actually view the electronic bill, but the consumer does not have to actively seek out the bill. Another advantage of the Email model is that, assuming all the customer""s billers adopt this approach, all of the customer""s bill arrive at a single mailbox. The Email model is closest parallel to the traditional paper billing process with which everyone is familiar. The most significant drawback of the Email model is the lack of security for the billing and payment information. Although encryption techniques are currently available, the lack of a consistent Email interfaces renders these encryption techniques difficult to practically implement. A further disadvantage of the Email model is the lack of a certification of delivery of the Email message containing the electronic bill. This generates uncertainty, both from the biller""s and customer""s point of view, whether or not a particular electronic bill was sent by the biller and/or received by the customer. A final drawback of the Email model is lack of any legal precedent governing this type of bill presentation.
In light of the disadvantages of each of the above described models for EBPP, there is a need felt in the industry for a system and method which: provides attractive financial opportunities for billers; maximizes consumer reach; guarantee privacy and security; facilitated rapid functional evolution; and avoids disruptions to a biller""s systems and operations environment.
The present invention incorporates the advantages of each of the models described above in an integrated solution which minimizes the disadvantages associates with each model. The core of the present invention is an entity known as an Information Interface Provider (IIP). The IIP takes on the role of the information interface between a biller and its customers. In a preferred embodiment, the IIP provides a billing interface (for both bill presentment and payment processing) but the IIP is also able publish a variety of information for different types of entities, such as 401K statements for financial institutions. Although the below detailed description describes the preferred embodiment of electronic bill presentment, the present invention is not limited to such an embodiment. In its central function, the IIP creates and publishes bills to the biller""s customers in response to data provided by the biller and processes the payments in response to instructions provided by the customers. The IIP maintains a Biller Acquisition Platform (BAP) which is a biller""s single pipeline to the ever expanding EBPP world. The BAP is not a presentment site, rather it is a staging area which facilitates presentment to the biller""s customers via any vehicle (web sites, email . . . ) and facilitates payment via any accepted payment mechanism (ACH, credit card, paper check, digital cash . . . ).
The IIP accomplishes the bill publication by any and/or all channels of distribution which are effective in reaching the customers of the biller. These channels include, for example, traditional paper distribution, biller direct Internet site, a Customer Service Provider (CSP) operated Internet presentation site, consolidated Internet presentation sites, Email, personal digital assistants, voice response units, video phones, programmable cellular phones, interactive cable TV, interactive satellite TV, smartphones, telephones, facsimile, Automated Teller Machines (ATM), and pagers. In one embodiment of the present invention, the customer selects one channel by which it is to be presented bills and the IIP transmits the bill through that single channel of distribution. In an alternative embodiment, the customer can select several of the above channels and the IIP will ensure that the bill is available on each of the customer selected channels. In addition, the IIP can ensure that certain bills will only be published through certain channels.
In providing the core billing function, the role of the IIP is to insulate its customers, the billers, from the physical task of presenting the bills to the consumers and from processing the payments from the consumers. In order to carry out the task of presenting the bills to the consumer, the IIP must have access to the xe2x80x9crawxe2x80x9d billing data from the biller. This access can be accomplished either through direct access by the IIP to the accounting systems of the biller or through a data feed from the biller to the IIP. Once the billing data has been received by the IIP, the IIP formats the billing data for storage in its own internal database and then performs the task of formatting the bill for the particular channel(s) of distribution selected by the customer. Each biller has its own format and content for its xe2x80x9crawxe2x80x9d billing data. Each channel of distribution has a distinct format and restrictions on content. Each customer has its own selected preference(s) for the channel on which the bill is to be presented. In light of all of these variables, the function of correctly formatting a particular bill for a particular customer is a significant task for the IIP. The present invention performs this formatting task using relational and object oriented databases which are the core of the BAP.
In addition to presenting the bills, the IIP is also responsible for processing the payment from the consumers on behalf of the biller. As described above, an IIP performing this function is acting as a CPP. Several types of consumer payments are envisioned in the present invention including Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments, credit or debit card payments, paper checks, smart card payments, and digital currency payments. Furthermore, the IIP must be able to track preauthorized payments of certain bills by customers. Using preauthorization, the consumer may authorize the IIP to debit a preselected consumer account with respect to certain bills, typically recurring bills for the same amount, e.g., a mortgage payment. Once the IIP has debited the consumer""s account, it performs the role of a BPP and credits the account of the biller. The IIP consolidates all of the Accounts Receivable (A/R) information (i.e., which consumers have paid their bills and how much) and presents the biller with a single file which can then be used by the biller to update its own internal A/R systems.
As described above, in addition to performing billing functions, the IIP has the capability to electronically publish virtually any type of information which an entity desires to distribute to its customers. For example, the IIP can provide electronic statements to the entity""s customers (e.g., a statement of a 401K account or an insurance policy). Furthermore, the IIP can include marketing or other informational inserts in a presented statement or bill and perform ordering, payment and fulfillment functions with respect to the marketing and/or informational inserts. Additional functions of the IIP are to provide consolidated customer service data, collect and store customer enrollment data and customer preferences, and to provide a consolidated bill activation process. Each of these additional services performed by the IIP is ancillary to the core electronic publication function and can be performed or not performed at the request of the biller or other entity. In the preferred embodiment, since the goal of the IIP is to isolate the biller from the customer billing interface, it is anticipated that most billers would want the IIP to perform these additional functions. Any statement or marketing inserts which are to presented to the customer must also go through a formatting process, depending on the intended channel of distribution.
Customer service functions performed by the IIP include responding to customer and or biller inquiries regarding bills and payments. In one embodiment of the present invention, the role of the IIP is to either resolve the consumer""s problem directly, if possible, or in any event to guide the consumer to the entity having responsibility for resolution of the problem (e.g., the consumer""s bank, the biller itself, the CSP . . . ). In an alternative embodiment, the IIP does not perform the customer service function directly, but rather maintains and provides the biller with access to a customer service database which can be utilized by the Customer Service Representative (CSR) of the biller in order to track customer service inquiries to their conclusion.